Another year has gone by. I’ve been through some fairly major life changes. New city. New job. New friends. New experiences.

Instagram has gone through some major changes as well. The photo-sharing app with vintage filters opened its doors to Android users and a few days later was purchased by Facebook for $1 billion in early April. A few Instagram users freaked out about the availability on the Android Market and even more freaked out after the news of Facebook’s purchase. Of course, this did nothing to slow its growth. In fact, during this 10 day period, the app saw explosive growth and ended up adding another 10 million users–1 million new users a day.

Then Instagram changed its privacy policy and people freaked out again–this time with the idea that Facebook was going to start selling users’ photos. This would all come to a close soon enough after Instagram apologized to its users and vowed to remove language that suggests they have the right to sell users’ photos. Oh, and a new version with a new filter was recently launched. Nice timing.

Now that you’re all caught up on the latest happenings of Instagram; let’s take a look at some of my personal top photos. For the second consecutive year, I have combed through my hundreds of photos and picked my top 10 of the year. I posted a good number of images shot with my Nikon D90, but this list is comprised of only photos shot and edited with my iPhone. You can take a look back at my top 10 photos of 2011 to see I have continued to grow as a photographer and get more creative with my shots. To view all my best photos from 2012, follow my on Instagram (@eric_wheeler) and view my hashtag #wheelers_best_of_2012. Take a look at my top 10 and let me know what you think!

The Sky Glider at the Minnesota State Fair.

Looking through the bridges over the Mississippi River and out to Minneapolis.

Apple is certainly a newsworthy company. In the past few weeks, Apple released the iPad mini, the patent war between Apple and Samsung has escalated and iPhone 5S and even iPhone 6 rumors have begun circulating the Internet (only three months since the launch of the iPhone 5). Not all Apple news is positive, however. The infographic below is particularly timely given the recent tumble in Apple shares. “Peak or Plateau: What’s Next for Apple?” is certainly a good title for this infographic as the data points look at the success from Apple in recent years and considers the falling stock as the tech giant looks ahead to the future. Whether the future for Apple is gloomy or sunny, you can be certain Apple will continue making big news.

Remarkably, Apple is able to remain in the limelight incessantly while still holding out on social media. Indeed, Mashable recently had a nice write-up on four huge brands still not on social media. There Apple was, the largest company in the world, at the bottom of the list. It seems silly. For the amount of traditional advertising the company does for each new product launch, it seems like a natural next step would be to layer social media on top of that and create online communities to further push its messaging throughout the Web. Maybe social media is finally in Apple’s future?

From the looks of this infographic, Apple might need to shake things up a bit to be sure it doesn’t ‘plateau.’ As you can see Apple has gained some huge ground in the past five years. For one, the iPhone alone now has higher sales than every product Microsoft has to offer. With a $500 billion value, the company is either going to continue thriving or simply flat line. This infographic even says its fan base is leveling out. But the underlying question? Is Apple’s financial skyrocket peaking or is it merely preparing for the next big launch? Check out the infographic from onlinebusinessdegree.org below and draw your own conclusion:

With voters heading to the polls this week this infographic is rather timely. I am lucky enough to not have to suffer through too many political ads because I don’t have a TV. However, social media is part of my job and my life in general so it’s impossible to escape political posts in my Facebook news feed or in my Twitter stream. Indeed, I follow Barack Obama on both Facebook and Twitter and hardly a day goes by where I miss out on a piece of propaganda turned out from his crack digital team. I’ll admit I didn’t watch a single second of the recent presidential debates, but I basically got the gist from all the memes and post-debate online chatter.

Take a look at the infographic below to see how social media has impacted this election so far. First, a few stats that jump out at me. For one, 9 out of 10 Senators and Representatives now have a Twitter account. Of course, these accounts are mostly being run by the campaign team or other staffers, but I think this still helps to emphasize the importance of social media in the overall strategy of politicians. Other stats that really jump out at me are based on the sheer volume of Tweets this year’s election has sparked. Barack Obama inspired over 52,000 tweets per second during the 2012 DNC–4 million tweets during his 39 minute speech. The first presidential debate even saw a quarter million mentions for “Big Bird.”

After you skim through the stats below, think about how social media has played a role in shaping your opinions. Would you be voting differently without social media?

I read a blog post a while back titled “How to Optimize Content When You Don’t Know Jack about SEO” and it made me think of all the SEO-related questions I get. Search engine optimization is definitely an important function of digital marketing, but I think a lot of PR professionals would rather just outsource the work to someone else. However, it is an important skill to have and just about anyone working in communications will need to know the basics of SEO at some point. I definitely do not claim to be an SEO expert, but I do know a few basic tricks and I seem to be the go-to guy at the agency I work at when someone has a question. This blog post focuses on using image tags on the WordPress platform.

Before getting too deep into things, please keep in mind that SEO is constantly evolving as search engines (namely Google) are always tweaking their algorithms. These tips are also coming from a blogger’s point-of-view and can be easily incorporated into the typical WordPress blog post.

Boost SEO by Using Images with the Appropriate Tags/Description

I’m a firm believer in the power of images to boost your chances of showing up in searches. For one, people perform image searches a lot. Another reason is it allows you to throw in a bunch of extra searchable data that Web crawlers love. For bloggers on WordPress, that means filling in every field in the form that appears after you upload an image (shown below).

WordPress makes it easy to add meta tags to images. Just be sure to fill in each field. It’s also important to have a basic understanding of what each field does.

A few things worth pointing out. Notice the original file name is “boost_seo_with_meta_tags.jpg,” which not only describes the image, but also aligns with the topic of this blog post. This is important for a couple reasons. WordPress will automatically create a link incorporating the original file name in the URL so it’s important to use a descriptive file name. Therefor, uploading a file named something like “photo.jpg” is going to do you no good.

Title and alternate text can be rather confusing as they both do essentially the same thing, but they each serve a slightly different purpose. Basically, alternate or “alt” text is meant to be an alternativeinformation source for an image–it should describe the image without the user actually having to see it. This is important for browsers that have images disabled and for meeting ADA standards. The image title is meant to supply additional information to an image. The key takeaway here is to use both a title and alt tag, but to use different phrases in each. Obviously it is a good idea to use your primary keywords (in my case “SEO” and “meta tags”) in both tags, but to use them in a natural way and without “stuffing” them with your keywords. If this is confusing, I suggest reading this article in Search Engine Journal.

The caption tag is pretty straightforward. Not every image in every blog post necessarily needs a caption and sometimes you might choose to leave it out for aesthetics or other reasons. However, you will be missing out on some free SEO “juice” when doing this so it’s definitely a good idea to use a caption when you can. Again, this should either describe the image or otherwise provide additional information or supply additional context to your blog post. Keep your keywords in mind, but don’t force them.

Be sure to provide a description tag as well. You have a little more freedom to provide more context here and to freely incorporate your keywords. However, there’s really no need to get too carried away as this information is not visible except when viewing the page source. But Web crawlers like them, so don’t leave it blank.

Finally, you’ll notice the last field contains the link URL. You are free to change this to link to another website or another page within your blog, but according to SEO expert Tom Pick, you’ll pass some SEO “juice” when doing this.

Think back for a minute to 2008 when Groupon opened shop. Can’t remember? If you’re like me, you probably don’t recall the first time you signed up to receive daily deals in your inbox–it just sort of happened. And, if you’re like me, you may have even thought “how can this type of site possibly last?” But, if you’re like me, you drank the Kool-Aid and before you knew it, you were getting Groupon emails everyday, were using the Groupon app and eventually signed up with other daily deal sites like LivingSocial or DealChicken or one of the other nearly 800 daily deal sites.

According to the infographic below, the Groupon business model is starting to crumble with one in three daily deal sites having already failed. Groupon itself has been failing pretty miserably for the last year or so. In fact, between a saturated market and retailers who claim to ‘hate’ Groupon for the small profit margins the deals bring in, Groupon could soon be history.

I think it’s pretty clear deal sites will continue to close left and right. However, I’m not so sure the end is coming as fast as this infographic claims. What do you think? Does Groupon have time to turn business around and get back in it for the long hall? Will another daily deal site rise to the top? Or is it just a matter of time before the entire ‘Groupon Bubble’ bursts?

Fallon put together a rather nice package of swag for its 10,000th Twitter follower … me!

I’m a little slow on this one, but I definitely owe a big thank you to the great Minneapolis ad agency Fallon Worldwide. Out of pure luck, I became @wearefallon’s 10,000 Twitter follower on July 11, 2012 and I received a surprise @mention the next day announcing me as the winner of Fallon prize pack. The surprise is two-fold: 1.) Considering I have a PR & Advertising list on Twitter and I’m a big fan of their work, I was surprised to learn I wasn’t already following Fallon and 2.) I had no idea they were planning to reward their 10,000th follower. Here’s the surprise tweet:

Congratulations to @eric_wheeler on being our 10,000th follower on Twitter! DM us your address & we will send you a package of Fallon swag.

Of course I sent in my address right way. However, I didn’t really know what the prize pack would include. I assumed it would be some pens and a note pad or something. Little did I know, I would have a box of high-quality goodies show up at my doorstep the day before my birthday.

The swag pack included a Lands’ End vest, an aluminum water bottle, ball point pen, journal, bracelet and rather nice coffee table book celebrating 25 years of Fallon’s work. But that’s not all, I even got a signed and framed picture of Pat Fallon to hang on my wall (which I did).

From a social media marketing standpoint, there’s a couple key takeaways here. First, the power of a surprise reward can be just as good as a full-fledged online contest. Sure, you might not get all the consumer information as you might with a sweepstakes (users’ email, mailing address, demographics, etc.), but if you do it right, it can still work for you. After Fallon announced its winner on Twitter, they also posted photos on Facebook and Google+ to get a little more traction. It also helps that Fallon’s 10,000th follower also happens to maintain a blog (I’m now writing about my experience).

Another takeaway was Fallon’s decision to go big on the prize package. It would have been much easier and cost effective to send me the pen and note pad I was thinking. However, I don’t think I would have gotten too excited about that. By including a book, vest, framed photo and other swag worth around $100, I definitely felt obliged to brag about it on my social networks and, eventually, blog about it.

Again, I thank the good people at Fallon Worldwide for taking time to reward a random Twitter follower. I’m looking forward to wearing my vest this fall and The Work: 25 Years of Fallon compliments my favorite advertising book, Juicing the Orange rather nicely.

Another impressive infographic has come through my inbox and is definitely worth sharing. This one shows the true power of the Internet in bringing people together for social change. Information flows so fast these days that it can be easy to overlook or forget some of the major events powered by social media and Web broadcasting. The Internet as the public knows it is roughly two decades in and is as much a part of peoples’ lives as life itself. OK, that might be a bit dramatic, but you can definitely get a feel for how important the Internet is as a communication vehicle.

Some of the information in this graphic that really jumps out at me include the fact that a computer programmer in Pakistan tweeted about the Osama Bin Laden compound raid hours before the mainstream media reported it. More than 10 million Internet users signed an online petition opposing the Internet censorship bill, SOPA, while another 3 million emails were sent to congress. The Internet is a true tool for social change and a vehicle for revolution. Check out the infographic below to see how the Internet plays a role in society:

Another infographic has come through my inbox that is definitely worth sharing. The folks at PsychologyDegree.net have gathered some interesting studies regarding the psychology of spending time on social networking sites. The basic assertion is that users of social networking sites are essentially narcissistic in nature. Though I would disagree it is that black and white, the infographic below does point to some interesting stats and findings.

It may be hard to argue with a finding that 80 percent of social media posts are about the poster. However, I might argue the validity of such a broad finding. It would be interesting to see how various social media platforms vary in this area. Twitter, it would seem, would yield more posts about topics of the user’s interests, but not necessarily about the poster him/herself. If you were to take into account social bookmarking sites, posts about the actual user would be almost non existent. My guess is the study was done with Facebook as the primary subject. Maybe I’m being too critical.

The last section of the infographic states that “half of all users compare themselves to others when they view photos or status updates.” That’s just human nature I suppose. What do you think? Are we obsessed with social media or are we obsessed with ourselves?

Foursquare is definitely one of the most underutilized social media platforms. Sure brands such as the History Channel and Starbucks are completely killing it on Foursquare, but the location-based app is fantastic for businesses of all sizes. Small businesses in particular have a great opportunity to gain exposure, reward patrons with deals and earn customer loyalty. Chances are, your business already has a spot on Foursquare. Wouldn’t it make sense to claim your venue so you have control of it?

There are plenty of articles about Foursquare success stories and you can skim through a few case studies on the app’s website. Probably the best reason to get your business on Foursquare is for the check-in specials–those are deals users can unlock after a certain number of check-ins or for becoming the ‘mayor.’ Check-in specials are only the beginning though. The following is a quick how-to on getting the most out of Foursquare–without spending any money.

Setting up a ‘personal’ account:

Create a new account for your business. To make this happen, go to foursquare.com and download the free mobile app.

Create lists & add tips. This is why setting up a personal business profile is important. Maybe you’re a restaurant owner who also serves pizza by the slice at local sporting events … might as well add a tip to those venues for fans to grab a slice during intermission. As the social media manager at KVSC-FM, I created a list of “KVSC’s Favorite Eateries.” The restaurants on the list are all underwriters for the station and the tips include special discounts for members of KVSC (a public radio station). Being a college radio station, I also created a list of tips for venues around campus such as “If you’re walking through campus or driving around town, tune to KVSC 88.1FM for college radio awesomeness! You can listen on mobile devices too. Just go to http://www.kvsc.org/listen.php” and “Make sure you get to hockey games in time for the pre-game intro. It. Is. AWESOME! Read more.” What’s really great about adding tips and lists is that you can link to websites and you can easily check the stats (e.g. “10 people have done this tip”).

Connect other apps, check privacy settings. Foursquare has a number of apps you can connect such as Foodspotting, Instagram and The Weather Channel. If your business is on Instagram for example, you can sync Foursquare to automatically check-in at a venue when you share a photo (by the way, if your business is on Instagram, go ahead an connect your Tumblr and Twitter accounts too). Since you’re a business and not an actual person, be sure to make your privacy settings as loose as possible–make it easy for customers to get in touch.

Setting up your business page:

Create/claim your venue. Unfortunately, this can be quite a drag–taking up to a week or more. This is good though because Foursquare is doing its best to make sure only real venues get claimed by the rightful manager. To get started, head to foursquare.com and sign in using the business account you just created or your personal account–doesn’t matter which. Search for your business and look for the “Do you manage this business?” and hit the “Click here” button. After that, just follow the steps. You will need to verify using the phone number of the business.

Create a special. Now that you’re managing your venue, go ahead and create your first check-in special. Foursquare offers a variety of specials to attract new customers or reward existing customers. Choosing a special for users who check-in to the venue for their first time might be a great way to get started. You can create multiple campaigns and test which ones work best.

Add employees and managers. If you’re a busy manager or owner of your business, it might be a good idea to delegate the responsibilities of general venue upkeep to another employee. Also, you can add employees to your venue so they can’t become the ‘mayor’ and reap the rewards that your actual customers should be getting.

Promote. You should get a window cling from Foursquare when you secure your venue … put it somewhere visible. Create fliers, Tweet it, include it in your eNewsletter, put it on your business card, train your employees to tell customers about it, add links to your website and anything else you can think of. Just be sure to follow the Foursquare brand guidelines.

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Thanks for visiting my blog. I maintain this site as a way to continue educating myself as a seasoned social media professional. Please subscribe to my blog for tips on social media, public relations, advertising and photography.

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